Fear and Loathing in Soul Society
by Guile
Summary: Welcome to the Academy, Mister Kenpachi. Please try not to kill anyone.
1. Shark in Shallow Waters

A/N: Spoilers here and there. I've always been interested in Kenpachi and Yachiru, so here's my take on their past, that takes place between when Zaraki finds Yachiru in the 78th District, and when he makes Captain.

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Hanya shuddered, as if stuck in a cold wind. "What was…?" He hadn't felt anything like it since his days as a mortal; Soul Society did have seasons, but winter and summer were both very mild. Not much changed in the land of the dead. So what, then, was that feeling, like someone walking over his grave?

He opened up his senses as widely as he could manage. This was his ability, the reason the Shinigami had taken him off the streets of Rukongai. It was his ability to see, a little better than most, what lay inside a person's psyche. Well, feel, more than see, really. Empathics, they called it.

His roving senses caught on something… and shuddered in the midst of a sudden onslaught. It was a feeling of bloodlust so strong he was surprised he was still standing in the wake of it. His eyes darted through the throng - it was a sort of passing period, between classes, and the halls were thick with students. He kept looking, until… there!

A bubble of stillness as every Shinigami student in the area, feeling subconsciously what Hanya could put a name and face to, strove to distance themselves from the threat.

The 'threat', it seemed, was a tall, lanky man. Of course, the description 'tall and lanky' didn't really do this man justice. He towered over the nearby students by a head or more. Some he dwarfed by several feet. And he wasn't so much 'lanky' as skeletally thin. Hanya could see through his open shirt, the suggestion of rib bones. His hair lay on his head and hung around his face like a dead thing. His face housed a blank void of an expression. In short, the man looked like death warmed over. He looked more like something that belonged in the ground rather than up and walking among the living.

Hanya was reminded of the horror movies he'd seen as a mortal, the ones with zombies. Dead men who rose and fed on the flesh of the living. It seemed all too possible, just in the presence of this man.

"Ah, I see you noticed ol' Gloom n' Doom over there," a voice breathed in his ear. It was only through a serious effort of will that he _didn't_ leap a foot into the air. Looking rather calmer than he felt, he looked over his shoulder at a classmate and friend of his, Satoshi. "Gloom and…?" He shuddered. "What's a man like that doing in the Court of Souls?"

Satoshi shrugged. "Hardly a man at all, from what I hear. Word is, he clawed his way up out of the 80th District. You know what they say about that area of the Rukongai. Demons and jackals, the lot of 'em. The very worst get sent there when they die. And if the rumor mill is anything to go by, he carved a bloody swath up through the Districts until he hit the Court of Souls, took down one of the Guardians of the Way, and asked to become a Shinigami. They signed him up and gave him a zanpakuto on the spot."

Satoshi looked back at the man. He didn't even know Hanya existed, and that menacing reiatsu pushed at him until he felt like he should be on his knees. He tried vainly to draw in on himself, to lessen the spiritual pressure in his head.

And then, a pink head popped up over his shoulder, and Hanya almost fell over. The - girl's? He thought it was a girl's - mouth was moving a mile a minute, though he was far enough away that her words were a meaningless babble of sound. The man - he'd have to learn his name - didn't even seem to notice he'd picked up a child somewhere, and that said child was clinging to his back like a limpet.

"What in the name of Soul Society…?" Satoshi filled him in, like he'd expected the question. "Yeah, some kid. When he showed up, she was with him. Hasn't let her out of his sight yet, that I've seen. They eat together, sleep together - probably bathe together, too."

Something of what had passed through his mind must have shown on his face, because Satoshi hastened to reassure him. "Not like that. Just sleeping in the same bed, is all." He almost seemed to drift off for a moment. "I dunno what she sees in the big guy. She's just about the cutest thing ever, and him… well. Kenpachi-san ain't gonna be winning any awards for sweetness any time soon."

"Kenpachi…?" Hanya asked weakly. Kenpachi. The title given to the most blood-thirsty, battle-hungry Shinigami of a generation. It fit him. Satoshi nodded soberly. "Yea. Zaraki Kenpachi. He doesn't answer to anything else. The kid's name is Yachiru. Yachiru-_chan_, or things can get messy."

"Ah," Hanya said faintly.

Kenpachi moved on, looking like a shark swimming through a school of tuna.


	2. The Bloody Tide

A/N: Finally got around to continuing this one. I think I'll do this like a series of snapshots of Zaraki's academy days, as told through the eyes of my lil' OC from the first chapter. Hope you enjoy it.

- - -

Hanya smiled as the harsh clangs and shouts of the salle greeted his ears. While his swordsmanship was not particularly inspired - his skills lay more towards kidou and healing techniques - he did enjoy testing himself against others in the training area. It was cathartic in some way he couldn't immediately identify. Plus, improving his sword skills could only help his chances of getting into one of the Gotei 13; they liked upcoming students to be proficient in many areas.

He looked around as soon as he'd cleared the doorway, searching out familiar faces. There was an odd feeling of bloodlust in the air today. _Very strange_, he mused. There was Satoshi - his military-minded friend spent most of his down-time honing his weapon skills - and he recognized a few other faces from various classes. What was most of interest, however, was the large crowd of shinigami clustered against the far wall. After a moment, he realized that most of the sound of sword-on-sword was coming from the crowd, interspersed with a number of shouts and oaths, and over it all, the sound of... giggling?

Hanya started shoving his way into the throng. When in Rome, right?

It took a bit of time, as well as a few discrete elbows, to force his way into a position to see. And when he did...

In the back of his mind, he wasn't overly surprised. Who else but the Kenpachi would draw that much attention to a sword bout? It almost seemed, to his amazed eyes, as though the entire crowd was attacking Zaraki, but a closer look revealed that it wasn't a total melee. A headcount proved that Zaraki's opponents numbered only six. _Heh. Only,_ Hanya thought to himself. High-level students, too - Hanya recognized several who were at least ninth-years as they spread out to better surround their sole opponent.

The lanky man was smiling, his too-sharp teeth set in a grin that brought to mind certain wild predators. Hanya had seen swordsmen whose fighting style looked like a dance before. Kenpachi's style was not beautiful. It was efficient, and bloody, and brutal, and suited him right down to the ground.

He leaped forward, his sword moving incredibly quickly, blood flew; down went one student, and then another. Hanya's healer instincts immediately analyzed the damage - shoulder wound, slash to the ribs, no damage to internal organs, not fatal - and breathed a sigh of relief. The man was fighting with live steel, but he wasn't deliberately seeking to kill. Another took the opportunity to strike, and a sword stabbed a deep gouge in Kenpachi's side. It occurred to Hanya that the scary man's black clothes were stained with his own blood as well as other's, but his grin never faltered.

The odd giggling came again, and for a crazy second, he thought it was coming from Kenpachi. It was only when Kenpachi turned to strike down the one who had hit him that the student healer realized that the child was still attached to his back, even in the midst of combat, and it was from her that the laughing had come. He stood, frozen with indecision, over whether he should intervene.

Or if he could. His merely workmanlike swordsmanship wouldn't last long at all in that bout. He finally stayed right where he was; he had no interest whatsoever of entering and Kenpachi assuming he'd come to reinforce his opponents.

Thankfully, the bloody bout was over within another two minutes. All of the combatants were bleeding heavily, but only Kenpachi was still standing. Amidst the fallen students, and surrounded by the watching crowd, the man tipped back his head, lank hair cascading down his back, and let out a great sigh of enjoyment. He flicked his sword, getting most of the blood off it, before tossing it back onto the rack that held them.

Without a word, he strode through the crowd, which parted like the Red Sea as he walked by. The pink-haired girl was chattering happily as he walked with measured steps across the salle and out the door, and the feeling of bloodlust went with him.

Hanya sighed and went to tend the wounds of the fallen.

It looked like he wouldn't be getting any sword practice this evening.


	3. The Little Fish Has Fangs

"Hadou 31: Shakkahou!" the instructor barked. "First row, step forward!"

Hanya shifted a bit more comfortably onto his heels as the first row of students began gathering their power in preparation for releasing the Hadou. Despite Kidou being his specialty, he couldn't say he actually looked forward to these classes. Katsumoto, the instructor, was a strict taskmaster of a teacher. He supposed it was simply that the older shinigami wanted to pound as much teaching into their heads as possible in their time together - and no one could deny the man was a knowledgeable, experienced shinigami. He just wasn't a very likeable person.

Not like Lady Unohana, who had taught a guest lecture on healing techniques. Hanya drifted off momentarily, remembering her kind, welcoming manner.

"Hi hi!" the exuberant voice very nearly made him fall over. Despite sounding very loud in his ears, the instructor never even glanced towards the third row, where Hanya had been sitting. He turned and found himself face-to-face with the little pink being that followed Zaraki around. The 'Demon Zaraki', he'd heard the man called. Suddenly nervous, a quick look around didn't immediately show a looming Kenpachi about to swoop down from on high - possibly heralded by the screams of small children - and destroy him for talking to his little disciple.

Finally, he realized he'd been staring wildly around himself for several seconds, though that had apparently not stopped the little girl from chattering on. He realized she'd already introduced herself as Kusajika Yachiru and was now explaining how cool she thought his hair was. He tugged at his rat-tail self-consciously, which was apparently a bad idea, since it had given Yachiru the same idea.

Except, in order to reach, she'd had to use him as a stepping stool, and her feet landed directly on somewhere that was very, very uncomfortable for him, even as slight as her weight was. His hands flexed, ready to remove her from her perch, until visions of Kenpachi-retribution danced through his head. His hands stayed where they were.

"Ah," he said, his voice slightly strained. "Hello. My name is Hanya, Oto- "

"Nezumi-chan!" Yachiru pronounced. Hanya blinked. Had he just been called a mouse? "Um," he tried again. "My name is Hanya."

"Nezumi-chan," she repeated with surety. He licked his lips and started to say, "Well, then -" when she interrupted him again. "Well, I need to get back to Ken-chan, I think it's almost our turn!" And in a blur of speed, she was gone, and Hanya was left staring at empty space. He had to admit he was impressed. He doubted he could move that fast, and he'd been training at the academy for over five years. Not only that, but there was something about her aura that made it so he hadn't even noticed she'd come - just like even his enhanced senses couldn't seem to read her presence when she appeared.

He'd have to look into that - learn the trick of it, if he could. He could think of lots of situations not being noticed would be useful for.

He was so enmeshed in thoughts of sneak attacks and unnoticed midnight snacks that he only noticed that the row ahead of him had reteated to the back of the room, leaving his row the first in line, when whoever was behind him nudged his back. With a thankful glance over his shoulder, he prepared to step forward.

"Forward," barked the sensei.

"Tch," Hanya heard Kenpachi mutter from several spaces down. "What a waste of time." His voice clearly stated that he would rather be making things bleed than learning anything to do with kidou. His pink passenger pulled herself up until she was evenly balanced on his shoulder and sang into his ear, "Lemme try, Ken-chan!" Hanya smiled to himself when the enormous beast of a man caved into her demand. They were, he thought, oddly cute together. He wondered, idly, if grouping the words _Zaraki Kenpachi_ and _cute_ in the same sentence qualified him as certifiably insane.

Their row stepped to the fore as new targets were set up. His smile widened when he saw that only a quarter of the previous row had hit their targets at all. He might not be a prodigy, but kidou _was_ his strong suit; an above average amount of power and a steady aim ensured that he very rarely missed. And he had to admit to a bit of vanity in this, his one ace subject. It was nice to be acknowledged in those few areas in which he excelled, after all.

Hanya centered himself, and began drawing in his power in preparation to release a bolt of blue fire: the 31st kidou. In his light trance, he vaguely heard a child-like voice say, "Like this?" before his senses detected an immense gathering of strength that dwarfed his own offering by an order of magnitude. If his power was a lamp to his classmate's candle flames, this was the sun fallen to earth.

He threw up a hand to shield his eyes, his kidou conjuring forgotten. The rest of the class, even Katsumoto-sensei, seemed blissfully ignorant of it. How could they not _sense_ it?

A bare second later, there was a roar, and a ravening beam of pink fire erupted and tore across the intervening space. It devoured several targets without slowing, and kept on going, until itslammed into the wall behind the targets with a thunderous detonation.

Even having closed his eyes as soon as the pink fire had appeared, Hanya still had to blink spots out of his eyes. Within a few seconds, he was able to see the result: a hole in the wall ten feet across (hadn't that wall been made of lethality stone? his mind did its level best not to descend into gibbering madness) and Yachiru-chan hopping around with glee.

Another, almost reluctant grin quirked his lips, despite his stupefaction. And here he'd been thinking the Kenpachi was the only dangerous one.

- - -

lethality stone: used in the formation of sekkiseki walls, i.e. the stone Soul Society prisons are made out of that drains spiritual power.

A/N: Ahh, feels good to get back into the writing game after three months of absence. A real shame trying to upload anything to ff net makes me feel like I just got done going three rounds with the superhero of your choice.

By the way, I pretty much exclusively watch the anime, so if I write something that conflicts with manga, or if you happen to have a suggestion on something I can do better, review and let me know, huh?


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